Shopping for a New Church, Week 3

As much as the last two Baptist churches seemed different from each other, this most recent family visit to the Heritage Baptist Church in Nashua takes the cake.

First of all, the neighborhood we had to drive through to find the church was a stereotypically "rough" section of the city. The houses were all white, built 70 years ago, worn out, and practically on top of each other. We realized this church would not be an upscale church.

Once we realized we had finally come to the unassuming presence of their all-red brick building, we were greeted by their very daunting chain link fence that enclosed their entire property. We had to figure out where was the narrow entrance through the fence into their property.

We got inside quickly, where we were introduced to a flurry of activity and commotion. For all the properness and professionalism of the last two churches, this was not like that. They were busy and friendly, but organized they were not.

Most of the people seemed to be low-income families. There was a vast spread of food items, spread out like a grocery store, in the basement for all to choose from at the end of the service. And many took advantage.

I did not feel good about letting my kids go in such a diverse and chaotic group of people for children's church. However, I did enjoy the pastor's sermon. Even though his preaching was all over the place, he preached with conviction and commitment to the truth and moral issues. The worship was severely lacking, though, as there was no music whatsoever, and the worship leader couldn't carry a tune very well. There were probably up to 100 people there that day.

I doubt we will go back. We did not feel comfortable there. But they seem to have a wonderful ministry.